


the rain came pouring down when i was drowning (that's when i could finally breathe)

by jynersq



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 21:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3355196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynersq/pseuds/jynersq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s not certain of much, at the moment, but one thing she does know is that she has to speak to Fitz as soon as possible. Even if it means waking him up, even if it makes them both uncomfortable, even if she turns her heart out to him and he rejects her. All she knows is that she’s running on leftover adrenaline and shaky emotion, and it’s all she has, and it has to be enough.</p>
<p>(Or: Fitz and Simmons may drift, but they’ll always find their way back to one another. They have to.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rain came pouring down when i was drowning (that's when i could finally breathe)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [littleleofitz](http://www.littleleofitz.tumblr.com)'s FitzSimmons Secret Valentine prompt: _“the rain came pouring down when i was drowning.”_ Thanks for the excellent prompt, Abbie! I hope you enjoy this. ♥
> 
> Monumental thanks to Juliana ([owlvsdove](archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove)) for being my awesome and hilarious beta!

 

* * *

**i. _the drought was the very worst (the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst)_**  

* * *

In the end, she can’t stop him from leaving.

The day he moves to the garage, the sky hovers deep and grey around the squat cement building, as though even the weather protests his going, as though it wants to keep Fitz and Mack from making trip after trip, moving the rest of his equipment out of the lab and into the garage. A quick peek out the window shows the clouds ready to split open and spill in the same way the pressure in Jemma's chest builds the emptier the new lab becomes. Something tells her she won’t be complaining about lack of counter space anymore.

Having ultimately failed to prevent his going, she'd offered to at least help him move, but had been politely declined. So, she just keeps to the side and watches. She's absorbed nothing of the crisply stapled report before her on the counter, though she must have paged through it half-a-dozen times.

It shouldn't feel like abandonment, she thinks, because this lab was never really theirs, anyway. They’d hardly ever occupied it at the same time, much less worked together in it. It shouldn't feel like abandonment, because she'd been the first one to leave.

It doesn't take very long to clear his space. Today's just a formality, really — most of his things have already gone, or were never here in the first place. If she's honest with herself, she'd lost him to the garage a long time ago.

When he approaches her at the counter, her stomach gives a nervous twist. She senses more than sees him him walk up, already dreading whatever it is he feels has to say. Part of her wishes he’d just let this moment pass; part of her wants to beg him to stay. Most of her wishes this weren’t necessary in the first place.

"Um, I think that's everything, then," he says, when it's clear she's not going to speak first.

She looks up, forces a quick smile. "Ah. Well, that's. It's, um.” She clears her throat, shuffling her papers absently. “Yes, it appears so." She looks down.

He scratches the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Listen, I know you're not happy about this—”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“—but it’s for the best,” he finishes, over her.

"I know that’s what you think,” she says, noncommittal.

“Jemma, you know I can’t stay,” he says, softer.

She takes a deep breath.

“You’re sure?" she asks, surprising herself by how close she comes to begging. She’d meant to make a better argument, something like _you could never be a burden,_ or _I don’t want this lab if it doesn’t belong to you, too._

"I'm sure, Jemma." He's not looking at her. "It's better this way,” he says again. “You'll have more space to move without me getting in the way."

“You don’t get in the way,” she murmurs, looking at her hands. You belong here, she doesn’t say, because she knows he won’t believe her, anyway. He stopped listening to her a long time ago.

He shrugs. Somehow, she’d rather fight him on it. If they’re not ultimately built to last, fine — but she’d rather they explode than follow a slow decline and then drop off into nothing.

"Regardless." He shakes his head. “Um. I should get back to the— the garage. Coulson has something for Mack and me to work on, large-scale modifications to the cloaking mechanism—”

Suddenly, mid-sentence, she can’t stand him here. Not if it’s going to be like this, not if it’s going to be filled with apologies and excuses.

“Fine,” she cuts him off. “Go.” She turns away. “Say hello to Mack for me.”

He blinks, then nods. “I _am_ sorry.”

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” is all she says.

He looks to his feet, then turns to go. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard, then calls after him without looking up.

"Fitz." He turns back. "Just— don’t be a stranger, all right?"

He smiles at her sadly, as though he too knows they already are.

“Will do.”

 

* * *

**ii. _you're all over me like a wine-stained dress i can't wear anymore_**  

* * *

 

With all the other scientists, researchers, and general staff running back and forth at all hours, she can't possibly fathom how the new lab could be lonely, but it is.

For all practical purposes, she's been working alone for months, both at HYDRA and the Playground. But there’s something about this particular loneliness, something about knowing that Fitz doesn’t _belong here_ anymore that seeps into everything; as soon as his last stray mug is retrieved from her counter space, as soon as he runs out of forgotten items to run back for, it’s a more permanent quiet.

In the few weeks since he’s left, they’ve managed to reach some kind of tentative peace, though it’s one that hinges on her not coming down to the garage if she can help it — she’s still a little too raw to see him with someone else in what used to be their place — and him dropping by the lab every few days, sometimes to ask, hesitantly, what she’s working on. It should be a step in the right direction, but it just feels shaky, something built on the unsolid foundation of fights yet to be fought and words left to be said.

But she doesn't want to fight. So she keeps her mind busy, works long, odd hours in the lab by day, and at night crawls into bed to the same dreamless sleep, and she does not think of the way things used to be.

And, somewhere along the way, she gets used to it.

There are some days that come when things don’t feel so heavy, when Skye comes in to affectionately pester her with a beer or a story, sometimes Trip, with a grin and a joke to keep her spirits up, and May’s a constant presence — and it doesn’t make up for all of the empty spaces, but sometimes she's weary enough to trick herself into thinking it could almost be enough.

 

* * *

**iii. _the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room (let the flood carry away all my pictures of you)_**  

* * *

She avoids going back to her bunk as much as possible.

Her _old bunk_ , she corrects herself, when she thinks about it. She hasn’t slept on the Bus in months — she comes back to the team and she knows full well it’s not where she sleeps anymore, but she’ll find herself heading there anyway, some nights, overtired body and exhausted mind steering her on that familiar path, only to have to catch herself and go back the way she came. Back to her bigger, more permanent, more unfamiliar and slightly chillier room on base.

Tonight, though, a familiar pang strikes her chest as she comes intentionally down the darkened hall, approaches these three particular bunks, as she remembers how it used to be to say goodnight to Fitz and Skye at the same time, to be so close she could practically hear them breathe.

She’d meant to continue past, heading for the kitchen to scrounge up the last few beers, but she can’t help but stop by her old sleeping quarters.

Without her permission, her fingers seem to fit perfectly against her bunk’s keypad, though it’s neither hers nor a bunk, anymore — these small rooms are used more frequently to house file-boxes or shipments of documents Coulson’s been consolidating for the past few months from international SHIELD leftovers than actual sleeping quarters.

Steeling herself, she punches in the numbers, steps inside. Her bunk is the furthest from the front of the plane, as well as the smallest — though only by a little. All this means is that it’s less used than the others, has gathered a faint layer of dust.

It’s mostly bare, now, she knows without even opening the door. Long-since stripped of anything personal, even before she left. She’d spent most of her time those first few weeks in a chair by Fitz’s bed, anyway, and Coulson hadn’t had room for sentiment. She knows that. And he’d asked her before resettling her meager belongings into a more permanent room at the Playground. She knows. It hurts anyway.

She walks to her dresser, runs a finger along the wood. There are small holes in the wall above it, where she’d pinned pictures and articles and her favorite papers until she could barely see the wall — now, it’s a dim constellation of used-to-be’s.

She muses over the faint ring on the dresser-top where Fitz’s favorite mug had a nearly-permanent residence, the empty hangers she always complained to Skye stretched out her favorite shirts. Her bed, where she’d read, where she’d written, where she’d slept. Where Fitz had slept a handful of times, the least of which not being the night she’d jumped out of the plane. Her chest is quickly growing tight.

Luckily for her, the room is too small to spend too much time in, and she’s almost ready to duck back out when her eyes land on a small, white rectangle peeking out from under the bedposts. Her brow creases, and she bends down to pick it up, flip it over.

Her heart skitters painfully in her chest, and she sits down on the edge of the bed, hard.

A picture. It’s a candid, herself and Fitz in focus with Skye’s blurry smile in one corner of the frame. In the picture, Jemma’s half-leaned against the kitchen island, eyes scrunched up in delight, mouth open mid-laugh, Fitz directly beside her. He’s watching her out of the corner of his eye and trying to pretend he’s not; the pleased, vaguely-smug expression on his face means he’s responsible for the laughter, and he knows it. Their shoulders just barely brush.

A reflexive smile ghosts across her face. She remembers this. It’d been a slow night, back when they still had those, and, upon Skye’s prompting, Fitz had recounted one of their older and more ridiculous Sci-Ops tales — a story Jemma could’ve told it better herself, probably, but she’d let him do it, knowing that he enjoyed the attention; he’d looked to her for confirmation every few moments, anyway. Skye had presented her with the picture later that evening, that signature, secretive little smile on her face, and it had been pinned to her wall until she'd moved permanently into the Playground.

Her smile falls when she spies a blurry elbow in the right corner of the frame. Ward. And then she remembers the rest. Skye had taken this particular picture only days before SHIELD’s fall.

She sighs. They’d been happy, once. So far removed from it, now, it’s hard to remember.

Which is why she stands as quickly as she’d sat, risks one last, long look back at the picture, and leaves it facedown on the dresser.

Well, almost. She tries, to, anyway. She makes it to the door before she stops, turns back, carefully picks it up so as not to smear the glossy print. She can’t look at it, but she won’t leave it.

Naturally, she runs into Fitz in the hallway.

“Oh!” she exclaims, stopping short, to avoid running into him. “Hello, Fitz.”

He blinks in surprise. “Jemma. Hey.”

“Oh, um. Just, you know.” She gestures toward the back of the plane. “Nothing, really.”

He tilts his head, confused, and she curses herself for being so clumsy, for helping perpetuate these circumstances of awkwardness.

Mercifully, he looks to the photo in her hands. “What, um. Have you got there?”

“Hm?” she asks. Remembering the picture, “Oh, this. Just something I thought I’d lost.”

She passes it to him, shifting her weight nervously.

"I remember this," he murmurs, absently tracing the edges of the frame with one finger. Nodding at the picture, "You look happy."

She does — suspended in this one moment, she looks like a girl without a care in the world. A girl who knows where she fits in the world, a girl still sure of what she does and whom she works for. A girl with her best friend right beside her.  
She misses that girl.

"So do you," she says, not knowing how else to respond. "You remember this?"

He smiles. "Yeah. You let me tell the Sci-Ops story, right? The one with the mislabeled chemicals and the—"

“Exploding beaker, yes,” she finishes, with a little laugh, despite herself.

He says something else, too low for her to hear.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I told you— I told not to turn the heat up so high," he mumbles.

“I just wanted to see what would happen!” she defends, momentarily falling back into old habits. “Don’t be cross. Your eyebrows grew back eventually.”

“Took a good long while, though.”

She sighs, leaning in to get another look at the picture. Then, softening,

"In any case, we had a good time there.” He hums in agreement.

She sobers fully a moment later, spying a blurry elbow in the right corner of the picture frame — one that could only belong to one person. A person they don’t speak to anymore. The picture doesn't exist in a vacuum, of course.

“Anyway, uh. I should be going,” he says, picking up on her silence, tugging at one ear the way he does when he’s nervous. “S’getting late.”

She blinks, returning to herself. He passes her the picture again, fingers just barely brushing her wrist.

“Oh! Of course,” she says, forcing a smile she doesn’t quite feel. “Yes. Um. Me too.”

She doesn’t make a move, though, and neither does he, for a moment, and it’s quiet, it’s quiet and it’s almost comfortable and it’s almost like them.

The moment dissolves when he simply nods, turning to go.

“Goodnight, Jemma.”

“Goodnight, Fitz,” she says.

She stands in the hall for a while after he goes, picture in her hands, the faintest taste of what the used to be in her mouth.

That night, she brings the picture to her room. She doesn’t hang it up, but simply leaves it on her dresser and climbs into bed in the only old tee-shirt of his she has left, and wishes she knew what to do.

 

* * *

**iv. _rain came pouring down when i was drowning_**

* * *

She can feel the tension building as she drives. It’s that familiar throbbing quiet, the one that first made a home between them during her time at HYDRA and intensified upon her return — the one she’s currently choosing to blame on anything but the obvious discomfort of sitting in a near-silent car with someone who used to love you.

They're on a return trip from the grocery store in the growing dark, the jostling of the plastic bags in the back the only noise to interrupt the silence. Just the two of them, they’re very carefully holding themselves on their respective sides of the car and yet still very aware of the other.

And, in Jemma’s opinion, this entire situation is highly suspect.

Everyone on base, and suddenly Fitz and Simmons are the only two available to run menial errands, the closest grocery store being a twenty-minute hike each way? Over Fitz's own excuses, she’d tried to beg off as gracefully as possible, but Coulson had simply assigned her current work to another and told her to get the keys.

On some level, she appreciates what he's trying to do — what the others are all trying to do, from Bobbi in the garage to Mack in the plane — but she can't help but wonder grimly if they might all be working in vain.

She shakes her head slightly, hands tightening slightly on the steering wheel.

She's more disappointed than anything else — she'd thought maybe she'd felt something shift in the brief moment in the hall, but, tonight, it seems they’re back at square one. It hadn’t helped that, like most things, tasks once familiar to the both of them were now complicated by their falling-out as well as Fitz’s injury.

So he sits leaned up against the opposite window, drumming his fingers on the dash, and she keeps her eyes fixed on the way ahead, and they don’t talk much over the patchy radio she'd turned on only when the quiet had become unbearable.

They're approaching the nearly-hidden turn into the Playground's mile-long driveway when the engine makes a strange noise, and then another. She taps the gas, just in time to feel a shudder as what she assumes to be the engine sputters and dies completely, wheels slowly rolling to a stop.

She leans forward to peer around the outside of the car, puzzled. For a moment the tension between eases, as they look at each other again, thinking, _What the hell?_

She gives the car a moment, then tries the engine again. It turns over, but doesn’t start.

“Well, that’s strange,” Fitz says, more to himself than to her.

"Shall we get out and take a look?" she asks.

"Yeah. Should probably." He unbuckles himself too, then looks over to her. "No, you stay. S'cold out there."

“Oh, that’s all right,” she says, brightly, already unbuckling her seatbelt. "I'll come with you."

He shrugs, opening his door. "Can't stop you, I suppose."

Her hands still momentarily on the buckle. As she climbs out, the first lone raindrop falls on her shoulder.

They’re on the long approach to the Playground, in the dark, nothing around for at least a mile but gravel road and a few soft hills. Close enough to walk back to base, but this would mean leaving the car and groceries, and honestly they're both a little too fragile right now to return with nothing.

While he walks around to inspect the whole of the car, she tries her phone, then the SAT phone for service. No dice.

She'll leave Fitz to his work, she decides, leaning back against the side of the car. It's clear he still feels he has something to prove, so she just watches the darkening clouds roll in with a growing knot in her stomach.

Less than ten minutes later, he comes back around to her, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I can’t find— I can't find what’s wrong,” he says, carefully neutral, but with an undertone of frustration. “I mean, uh. Nothing _should_ be wrong, as far as I can tell. No damage to the engine. Nothing overheated. And it’s— it's not gas, because we just filled the tank—”

“Lack of compression, maybe?” she suggests. “Or, have you checked the tailpipe for blockage—”

“That's simple stuff, Jemma,” he interrupts,“I checked it. The engine’s fine. It just _stopped_.” He sighs, irritated. "Or, it was. Until it just stopped." Then, lower, "Contrary to what you and everyone else might think, I— I'm still capable. I still— I still understand."

She frowns. "No, I didn't mean to imply—"

He puts up a hand.

“Just. Don’t, all right?”

She gapes at him. “Why are you attacking me? I’m only trying to help."

He lets out a slow breath, looking at some point by his feet. “I know. It’s just that— It’s just that I. I may not move as fast as I used to, or make my hands work the way I want to.” He looks up at her, pained. Then, quieter, “But I’m not useless. I know what I’m talking about.”

If she hadn’t heard it so many times, it might tug at her heart as it once did. Now it just incenses her. How he could ever think she’d consider him a waste of space is utterly beyond her. And, quite honestly, it feels like a personal affront. She just sighs, and rolls her eyes up to the sky.

“I never said you were useless, Fitz,” she says, exasperated. “I don’t know how many more times you want me to say it.”

“You never _said_ it,” he murmurs.

“Well, I never bloody _thought_ it, either!” she snaps, startling him. “Is that what you want me to say? Because I never have, and I never will.”

Two more raindrops hit her shoulder, but she barely notices.

“Well, I— Then stop looking at me like it!” he exclaims, reacting to her rise in volume.

She groans in frustration.

“I’m not looking at you like anything! I’m looking at you as I’ve always looked at you.”

“That’s the problem, Simmons,” he says, and for some reason it cuts her, that he doesn’t use her first name. “I’m not— I’m not the same as I’ve always been.”

She casts around for the right words. Not finding them, she throws her hands up in frustration.

“Well, I— I don’t know what to do, here. What do you want me to say?”

“I want to know why you left,” he says, dropping every word like it’s a heavy thing.

“Fitz," she says, "We’ve been over this—”

“We haven't, actually,” he says, sharply. “I asked, and you excused yourself. I don't really consider that an explanation."

The rain's picking up, in the distance.

"You really want to do this now?" she asks. "Fine."

"I do, actually. And, no— no cop-outs, this time," he says, crossing his arms.

She scoffs. “Where am I going to go, Fitz?”

"I'm sure you'd find somewhere," he grits out. Then, lower, “You seem to do just fine without me, anyway.”

Something in her — some cord pulled thin and tight, something that’s been gathering tension for weeks — finally snaps.

“Do you think I _wanted_ to leave?” she bursts out, startling the both of them. He looks up at her sharply. “Do you think I wanted to lie to you? To leave you here when you were so obviously struggling? I did it because I was desperate!”

He’s very still. The rain’s picking up in a bad way, splattering on their shoulders and the gravel road beneath them, but their feet are rooted to the ground. It’s uncomfortable, but she forges ahead, trying to find the words she’s practiced in her head so many times. If she doesn’t say them now, odds are she never will.

She swallows hard. "I did it— I _left_ because because I didn’t know what the bloody fucking hell _else_ to do, Fitz!”

His mouth drops open, but she clenches her jaw, working against the tears building in her throat.

“Jemma—”

_“Don’t.”_ She puts up a hand. “ _Interrupt._ You wanted to know why, and I’m not done. I—" Her voice drops back down again. “I _left_ because it became clear I was only making you worse. Everybody could see it. _Mack_ noticed, for God’s sake.”

 “What are you talking about?” he asks, incredulous. “Mack—”

“Fitz, please. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.” She smiles grimly. “We’re past the time for that, I think.”

He searches for words and she kicks at a loose pebble, allowing herself to be momentarily consumed by the bitterness for all she has lost.

“Did— Mack, did he say something to you?” he finally asks.

“Doesn’t matter now,” she says, miserably. “He only confirmed what I already knew to be true. I’m not good for you to be around.”

There it is. He stops, staring at her in disbelief. Drags a shaky hand over his eyes.

“Hold on,” he says. “Hold on.”

She bites her lip, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

“You’re— You.” He casts around for the right words. “I thought— Was because you didn’t want to be around. Around me.”

It’s her turn to stare. “Do you really think so little of me?”

He shrugs. “You just _left_. I didn’t know what to think, so. Figured it was me.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it.

All of a sudden, thunder rumbles overhead and she shivers, rubbing her arms. In a few moments, they’ll be completely soaked. It breaks the moment a little, just enough for him to shake his head at them — at himself, at her, at the coming storm and the car they’ve completely forgotten about, at the ridiculousness of this whole situation.

“Just get back in the car,” he says, not unkindly. “Let’s just get back in the car.”

Inside is much quieter. The engine won’t even turn over anymore, so they just sit with their heads leaned back against the headrests and watch the rain come down fast and hard.

"I don't know how to fix this, Fitz," Jemma says, quietly. “This— us. I don’t know what to do.”

He sighs. “We have to stop.”

Her heart skips a beat. She turns to him, quickly, then realizes he’s only paused, looking for the right word. “We have to stop,” he continues, “A— _Assuming_ —”

“—we know what the other is thinking,” she finishes. Then, clapping a hand over her mouth, “Sorry.”

He gives her a humorless smile. “Actually, that was what I was thinking. But, yes. We do.”

Despite herself, she lets out a shaky little laugh. “Oh, Fitz,” she sighs. “What are we going to do with ourselves?"

“Wish I knew,” he murmurs. They go quiet.

She only halfway believes it when Agent Koenig appears in the dark an hour or so later with a reasonable explanation — rather than an act of God — apologizing profusely for one of his brothers’ testing of new electronic gate security while they were passing through, a sort-of long range EMP that had effectively shut down their electronic devices. Unable to get the engine running again, they’d simply climbed into his SUV, Koenig promising to have somebody else come out and retrieve the car and groceries.

Fitz opts for the back seat, so Jemma rides up front with Koenig for the short ride, making the best small talk she can to keep them from more silence.

Upon reaching the base, they climb carefully from the car and go their separate ways without another look, feeling the rift between them only widen.

 

* * *

**v. _the water filled my lungs (i screamed so loud but no one heard a thing)_**  

* * *

****

The next morning, he doesn’t come out to see her off.

When she passes his room on the way to meet the rest of the team, the door is still firmly shut, the lights off. She only briefly considers knocking.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, luckily. Today, May is leading a splinter team to investigate a potential 0-8-4 in Baltimore, and as much as she feels she might like to stay and patch things up with Fitz, May needs her more. Especially with their ever-dwindling numbers. Plus, it’s not likely he'd want to talk to her, anyway. Not likely they could get through more than a few sentences before inflicting worse damage on each other. What they need day or two to cool down, at least.

Even so, she thinks, making her way toward the day, even after everything, she can’t get used to leaving on missions without Fitz. It feels wrong to stand around the Holotable without him, to leave without a partner to buckle in next to for the flight.

But then, lot of things feel wrong, these days.

“No Fitz?” Skye asks, peering behind Jemma as she enters the briefing room. “He sick, or something?”

“Said goodbye to him, on my way here,” Jemma lies smoothly, slipping the strap of her backpack, loaded with the day’s supplies, over her shoulder.

“Well, good…” Skye says absently, going back to her computer, fingers flying over the keys, “because we’re almost ready to go.”

"Wheels up in five," May calls, passing through, and Jemma nods, heads toward the QuinJet.

May briefs Jemma, Bobbi, and Skye on the way over.

For a few weeks now, Coulson’s been getting reports of strange signatures radiating outward from a large warehouse on the Baltimore waterfront, close to a known former SHIELD base. As yet, no catastrophes or casualties, but the spikes in energy have been slightly alarming for a highly-populated area.

They’re mostly going to scope things out, maybe bring back an 0-8-4 if it comes to that. As far as they know, HYDRA has yet to go near this particular situation, may not expend explorative resources even if they did, so today’s supposed to be an low-key investigation and possible retrieval — duck in, check out the place, ensure that nothing presents a significant danger to the general public and neutralize it if it does — and duck back out. Simple enough, right?

Halfway through the trip there, Jemma’s distracted from some light conversation with Bobbi by her phone buzzing in her jacket.

She pulls it from her pocket to see Fitz’s old profile photo smiling brightly up at her, alongside his name and number.

She stares at it, and her heart gives a funny little jump. What could he possibly be calling for? Her own anger at him from the previous night is steadily beginning to fizzle into regret, but surely _he’s_ still angry with _her_. Conflicted, she lets it ring once, twice more stares at his name for a long moment before switching it onto silent. If it’s urgent, he’ll call again.

Her slight frown must have given her away, though, because Bobbi asks, with a slightly raised brow, "You need to get that?"

Jemma shakes her head, forcing a smile. There’ll be plenty of time for talk when she gets back, she reasons. Right now, she has a mission to complete.

She can feel Bobbi’s eyes on her, but she turns her head to the cockpit windshield and watches the frigid ground pass below.

They land the jet on a vacant rooftop nearby the warehouse in question and disembark. The building in question is pretty big, so they split up to take the four floors and work upward, meeting at the roof. They’re comfortable splitting up, because all scans show nothing but square, dusty crates and empty space. May takes the top floor, Bobbi, the third, Skye, the second, and Jemma, the ground floor.

All seems quiet on the first look. She sweeps the large space end to end, gun drawn in front of her. She opens up barrels and crates scattered around only to find only more dust, peers in corners to ascertain the only things hiding there are thick cobwebs.

The windows are thick with the grime of disuse and let in little natural light, so she shines her torch at the heavy steel rafters to make sure nothing sits in wait for her up there. All is dark, and quiet, and still, and she wouldn’t necessarily want to spend more time than necessary here, but it seems harmless enough. Nothing moves but for the dance of her torch beam on the cinderblock walls; nothing sounds but the echoes of her own footsteps and the faint movements of her team above her.

She’s just about to call it, to switch off the beam and rejoin the others when she hears the first shout.

_Skye,_ she thinks, and raises her gun again as she makes quickly for the stairwell — only to be met with a black-clad soldier who appears to step right out of the metaphorical woodwork, blocking the entrance to the stairs.

And then, judging by the sudden flurry of action above her, HYDRA’s where they’re not supposed to be — which is everywhere.

She sucks in a sharp breath, a string of choice words running quickly through her mind, none of them polite. Above her, she hears the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, maybe a wall. She prays it’s not one of her teammates.

There’s an exit to the building on the far side of the room, but she doubts she’ll make it that far.

For a moment they stand, just looking at each other. Her silence is surprise, his, the carefully calculated pause of an rattlesnake just before the strike. Then, he pulls his gun. If she had the time, she’d sigh.

Without a moment for hesitation, she fires one shot at his head and then, without waiting to see if it’d landed, turns and takes off running. She’s under no illusions that she’ll be able to evade forever, but she’s at least hoping to draw him around a corner where she can ambush him.

Unfortunately, upon bursting out of the entrance and into the daylight, she is not met with freedom, but with another HYDRA soldier.

“Why are you people everywhere?” she mutters.

He lunges for her, and she dodges, just barely. She tries to raise her gun, but a swift movement on his part knocks it from her. He reaches out to grab her but only ends up with a scrap of fabric from her jacket.

This man’s got a foot and at least fifty pounds on her. There’s no way she’ll be able to fight him off. So she tries to run, again, but this time he catches her.

He grabs her from behind, and the momentum throws them to the ground, hard. His gun clatters from him, and she manages to squirm from his grasp to grab for it. He’s barely a split-second behind her, though, and kicks it from her hand.

She’s quickly running out of options.

_“Help!”_ she shouts. But there’s no one around, not out here, and the rest of her team’s inside.

There are a few brief moments of grappling before his hands close around her, in which she notices that they are worryingly close to the waterfront.

She’s breathing harder, struggling against him with minimal success. They’re barely two feet from the railing that separates them from the dark, uninviting water. Something clicks in her mind.

Gathering all of her strength, she throws herself to the side. Toward the railing and, beyond it, the water, even though every cell in her body is screaming against it. She manages to drag him along, maybe half the distance. He tightens his grip, and she hurls herself to the side, once more. This time, it’s enough.

She’s staring at the very edge of the water, hoping desperately that this works, the shock of freezing water will be enough to break his hold. By the time he realizes what she’s doing, it’s too late. They’re already over the side.

She manages one last shout before she goes under.

Her whole body shrieks with the shock of the cold, and she can’t help but swallow a little gulp of water upon impact. Her plan doesn’t work as well as she hoped, at least not at first. The soldier's grip loosens slightly with the shock, but he’s not letting go — instead, he’s dragging them both down. It can’t be terribly deep here, but it’s enough. It’s enough to kill her if she can't get free.

Her body floods with adrenaline and terror, every cell screaming in ferocious determination for the surface above. She's somehow managed to become tangled in one of the straps of his vest and they're sinking fast — down, down, down.

Using her terror as fuel, she aims a sharp kick at where she figures the HYDRA soldier must be, then another.

Eventually she manages to works herself free, but her body is beginning to tire, and she’s disoriented. She struggles to pull herself up, straining as the water threatens to fill her lungs if she so much as opens her mouth, and her chest is bursting with the desire to let it all flood in.

And then, just when she’s nearly spent, she remembers, _Fitz._

She remembers Fitz, and this might be what it means to see your own life flashing before your eyes. Because he has been there for all of it. All of the parts that mattered, anyway. She remembers that he is the one she fights for, long after she's given up on herself.

If she can’t save herself now, she’ll never see him again. She'll never have hope for his continued recovery again, never hear him tell another dumb academy story again, never see him look at her with that brightness in his eyes. She'll die in the water, and May will have to find him and tell him herself. He'll have given her the oxygen for nothing.

In light of this immediate truth, all the pain they've been thrashing around in, everything they’ve been fighting over, hurting themselves and one another over, seems to become small and negligible. This must be what they mean, the people who jump from bridges and survive — and later recount a mid-air realization that many of the problems they were running from seemed at once fixable.

She may have realized it too late, but she can't die here. She has to make it back to him. She has to tell him— she has to tell him she’s sorry. She has to tell him she loves him. Nothing matters more than this.

There's a tremendous pressure in her head, and her lungs feel as though they're about to burst, yet she strains upward. She can't give up now. She can't. If she does, she’ll never see Fitz again, and that's unthinkable.

Even so, with each passing moment the blackness encroaches on the edges of her vision. She is so monumentally tired.

Whatever happens, she hopes he’ll know she did her best, and that she loved him more than anyone.

She reaches for the surface one last time.

She’s drowning — and then she isn’t. She’s underwater and then she’s dragged up, hauled onto dry land. Someone’s calling her name, but she doesn’t have enough air to respond. She sputters, coughing up water, and someone shifts her carefully onto her side so she won't choke.

May and Skye come in and out of focus, kneeling beside her on the concrete. She lies curled up for a moment, sucking in breath after shuddering breath.

_“Fitz?”_ is the first thing she gets out, sitting up.

No. _No,_ that’s not right, that’s not what she’d meant to say—

Dizzy and disoriented, she looks from Skye to May and back, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. She suddenly can’t remember where he is or why he’s not here, and she’s starting to panic, heart beating double-time. Skye grips her gently by the upper arms, holding her still.

“Fitz didn’t come with us, this time, Simmons,” she says, slowly, brow creasing in concern. She runs a light hand over Jemma’s back. ”He stayed back at the Playground, this time, remember? He's okay. You're okay."

Behind her, May cuts her eyes sharply over to Bobbi, shaking the hair out of her face as she lopes over.

Jemma blinks. Right. He’d stayed back with Mack, in the garage. Of course.

“No, I— I know," she says, shakily. Skye looks unconvinced. "Sorry," she says, shaking her head to clear it. "Don’t know why I said that.”

She tries to rise, but Skye prevents it.

“Cool it, there, hotshot,” Skye says, concerned. “Give it a minute, all right?”

Jemma shrugs. Her eyes then fall on Bobbi’s batons, one with a particular bright slash of red across it.

“That’s the last of them,” Bobbi tells May in an undertone. Noticing Jemma’s stare, she tucks the batons out of sight. “But we’d best get out of here as soon as we can. As far as I can see, there was never any 0-8-4.”

_It was a trap_ goes unspoken.

Jemma shakes off Skye’s hand, then, and stands. The concrete seems to waver beneath her feet, but she digs her heels into the ground and forces a smile.

“Well, let’s get going, then, shall we?” she says.

She manages to make it in one piece back to the QuinJet, but her mind is racing around a circular track.

—

When they get back to base, she unbuckles herself from the seat and strides quickly out of the jet, past the worried faces of May and Skye. She's still swiping tangled hair from her face and there's a long scrape on her arm that smarts, but she waves off the offer of medical attention. Her mind has kicked into overdrive, so she shelves it and the rest of her body's complaints.

She doesn’t stop off at her room to collect herself. If she does, she’ll think too hard and lose her nerve, and she can’t afford that, again.

All she knows is that she has to speak to Fitz, as soon as possible. Even if it means waking him up, even if it makes them both uncomfortable, even if she turns her heart out to him and he rejects her. All she knows is that she’s running on leftover adrenaline and shaky emotion, and it’s all she has, and it has to be enough.

She stops just short of his door, heart rising into her throat.

She takes a deep breath and then raps on his door, three sharp, quick knocks.

There's a muffled noise from within, and then a barefoot, sleep-rumpled Fitz opens the door. He blinks a few times in the hall light, and his eyes widen when he sees her standing there, slightly bloodied, hair dripping water on the cold concrete.

"Jemma?" he asks, voice low. "Are you all right?"

She just stares for a moment, taking him in, messy hair and soft blue eyes. She thought she’d never see him again.

“No,” she breathes.

In the next moment, she steps forward, pulls him close. The momentum and additional confusion cause him to fall back a step, and he braces himself on the doorframe as she crushes him to her.

"Jemma—" he says, softer, this time. He doesn’t reciprocate the hug, but doesn’t push her away, either.

"I'm sorry, Fitz," is all she says, into his neck. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me."

"What are you talking about?" he asks, bewildered. "For what?"

"I shouldn’t have left," she whispers, and as soon as she says it, she knows it’s true. "You needed me. I shouldn't have left you." She swallows, hard. "But I can’t keep doing this, working apart. I can't."

He pulls her back gently, to look into her face. "Jemma, slow down—"

"I almost died today," she says.

_"What?"_ he exhales.

She shakes her head. "I almost died,” she says, softly, “and all I thought— all I could think was that I’d never see you again." The words are tumbling out faster, now, "I thought I'd die, and you wouldn't know— you wouldn't know that nothing matters more to me than you. You do know that, don't you? I've told you?"

She searches his face, suddenly terrified that she's never made enough of an effort to say it, that she's always been too complacent, too sure to believe he already somehow knows what she feels for him.

For a moment, he just stares. Then, he drags her in close, wraps his arms around her.

"Of course I do," he says, into her hair.

Thank God. She closes her eyes, tries to breathe normally again, pressing as close to him as possible, so she might forget that they are separate. Or, she tries to — the movement accidentally jostles her hurt arm, and she lets out a sharp hiss.

He draws back.

"You’re _hurt,_ " he says, taking a closer look at her arm, the scratches on her face. "Let’s get you inside, yeah?"

He leads her to the edge of the bed, where she lowers herself down with a soft groan, muscles already beginning to stiffen. Quickly cataloging her various scrapes and bruises, he heads across the hall for the nearest first-aid kit.

She tries to take it from him, to do it herself, but he gives her that look that means she’s getting absolutely no further on that front.

He attends to the largest scrape on her arm first, and she watches as he works, head ducked in concentration.

"How did you get this?" he murmurs, swiping over the reddened area with a square disinfectant towel.

She bites the inside of her cheek. It’s in her nature to minimalize, to shrug off her own complaints to keep the ones who care about her comfortable, but she’s trying to be better about effective communication.

“Concrete.”

“Should’ve been there,” he says.

She shakes her head. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah, well,” he says. “Still.”

She taps him lightly on the arm with her good hand. “We have to start talking again, you and I.”

He nods.

“Um, speaking of,” he starts, beginning to wrap her arm. “I’ve been thinking—  about what you said. Leaving, when you left— You were doing what you thought was best, and I only made it more difficult for you. And that— And that was selfish of me.”

She shrugs her uninjured shoulder. "Well, I started it."

They fall into silence, but it's strangely comfortable, as though the air between them is finally beginning to clear.

Once satisfied that her arm is properly bandaged, he moves to her face. She’s got a long, harsh scrape across her forehead, and dotted scratches on one cheek.

A pink flush crawls from her neck to the tips of her ears when he takes her face in his hands; she watches the floor as he dots antiseptic across her face with a q-tip, brow drawn in concentration. He goes slowly to keep from hurting her, and her lashes flicker a little at the sensation of his fingers under her chin.

Suddenly, it occurs to her. She darts her eyes up to his.

"What?" he asks, suddenly self-conscious.

"Your hands—" she says, slowly. "They're steady."

Clearly pleased, he ducks his head briefly. "Yeah, uh. They've been getting better, I think."

She smiles at him, and he smiles back.

By the time she’s patched up to his satisfaction, her muscles have begun to stiffen painfully. He helps her ease out of her salt-stiff shirt, rifles through his dresser for a set of clean sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt for her to borrow.

As soon as she’s in clean, dry clothes once again, exhaustion swells. Her eyes begin to close of their own accord, and she can feel herself tipping sideways, the pull of Fitz’s mattress drawing at her.

“Tired?” he asks. Mostly concerned, but with a hint of that old teasing.

“I’ve had a— a very long day,” she mutters, rubbing at her eyes. “A _very_ long day.”

“I’ll say,” he agrees. Then, “Um, seriously, though,” he continues, a little unsure, “You can lie down. I mean, if you want.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. She collapses sideways, squirming until her head’s up high enough on the bed.

When Fitz hesitates, she reaches out and pulls him in, too.

"Just for tonight?" she asks. Hesitantly, he nods.

So they spend the night like this: her head pillowed on his proffered arm, her fingers tangled in his shirt. It feels like old times, and new times, and hesitant, repairing times, and everything between.

—

His face is the first thing she sees the next morning, resting softly on the pillow beside her.

They'd been close to begin with, but over the course of the night they've managed to situate themselves even closer; she can see every flicker of his eyelashes in sleep, every small, familiar freckle, and briefly her heart seizes up just for the joy of looking on him.

She's close enough that she could lean over and kiss him, if she were so inclined.

She won't, though. Not yet — but maybe soon. Maybe someday. For now, she'll let it be.

They have much to discuss, when he wakes up. She hasn't decided whether she'll try and convince him to run the science division with her again, just yet. It'll always be where he belongs. She also wants to know what it was like when she was away, eventually. But those things can wait. They're allowed to go slowly. They're a long way from fixed, but they're finally on the right track.

So she just closes her eyes again, curls up under his arm, and enjoys breathing right for the first time in months.

—

As it turns out, _someday_ comes sooner than she thinks.

She kisses him in the lab a little less than a week later, after-hours, poring over a stack of reports when he finds the word _neurotransmitter_ for himself, without any prompting.

It's a small thing on its own, but so indicative of a larger healing — and she really hadn't planned on kissing him just yet, but then he'd looked at her with such eagerness, such obvious excitement that she couldn't have kept herself out of it, anyway.

 

* * *

**vi. _i think i'm finally clean_**  

* * *

After that, things take a while to settle.

There's quite a bit to be done, in explaining, of course, as she's taken him almost completely by surprise — but, eventually, he stops looking at her like she might run.

She skipped a few steps, maybe, kissing him so soon, but then, maybe not. Maybe it's been a long time coming.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks, one afternoon a few weeks later. It’s a mercifully slow day, and she’s stretched across couch with her feet in his lap, half-reading the most recent copy of National Geographic. They’d been offered courtside (read: picnic table) seats to Skye’s pick-up basketball basketball game out back, but they'd begged off, opting for the freedom of a quiet base.

“Hmm?” he hums, briefly looking across over the top of his own reading. Then, “Yeah, shoot.”

She bites her lip, feeling a little foolish over what she's about to ask. Science demands answers, Jemma, she tells herself, gathering her nerve. Even in fields as unscientific and unquantifiable as love, science demands answers.

“When did you know?” she asks, all in a rush.

"When did I know what?" he asks, looking up.

"When did you know that you were." She pauses. She'd originally planned to play this off cheekily, but it comes out almost shy. "That you were. In love with me?"

She's never said it out loud before, she realizes — _You're in love with me_ — but she thinks she likes the way it sounds.

Carefully, he closes his book. He looks away, leans against the back of the couch, thinking. With each passing moment, the urge to bury her face in her hands only grows. What had she been thinking? It's entirely too soon to ask this kind of question.

Just as soon as she opens her mouth to try and take it back, he says,

"Um." He's still not looking at her, cheeks and ears noticeably pinkening. "Well, that— that would have to be. Um. D'you remember, you came to my room, that night, the night after the— after the virus, when you almost..." He trails off, not wanting to say the last bit.

Almost died?

Her jaw drops. She can't help it.

"Fitz," she said, incredulous. "That was months before you said anything! And you're terrible with secrets!"

"Well, granted," he says, tugging on his ear, "I, um, didn't know that's what it was, at the time. But that's what it was." He pauses. "Also, hurtful."

"I'm astonished," she says, playfully, dipping in to squeeze his shoulder when he grumbles at that.

"Really, though," she says, pulling back, searching his face more closely. "Was it really that long?"

"Probably longer," he says, honestly. "Just, uh, took me a while— to realize it."

A slow smile spreads across her face. He’s so terribly endearing, has such an earnest expression on his face that she can’t help but lean in to kiss him, running her thumb over his cheek and then into his hair, tugging him close by the neck of his shirt. He sighs a little into her mouth, a falling sound, and, when she closes her eyes, she remembers all over again just how glad she is that didn’t wait any longer to do this. All of this.

"Hey, Jemma?" he breaks in a little while later, the next time they pause to catch their breath.

Slowly, she blinks her eyes open. “Hmm?”

"Since you asked, I’m— I’m curious,” he says, almost too shy to meet her eyes. “When did you know— about me?"

She sits back a little, trying to shift her focus to the question in front of her instead of his mouth, also very much in front of her, and quite distracting.

"Mm, I don't think it was one moment in particular," she muses, after a minute or two, absently running the fabric of his shirt under her fingers. He’s still not looking at her, but she can feel every fiber of his being at attention. "I mean, for the longest time, I never dreamed…” She trails off, then picks up again. “Just, I woke up one morning and it was there, in my mind, as though it had accumulated slowly, or maybe had been there the whole time, and I just hadn’t put the pieces together yet."

She's given it a fair amount of thought, actually. While she hadn't had much time to process what he's said or how she felt about it in the moment or the immediate aftermath, time to think was all she'd had at HYDRA. Or so it had seemed. She'd spent many a night bone-tired and wide-awake, counting cracks in the ceiling and trying to determine whether any of them — or anything in her — spelled out love.

She hadn't even been sure of herself by the time she'd come back, really. Mostly because it'd become, once again, irrelevant — not much practicality in wondering over romance when the person is question isn't even speaking to you.

So, it's good to finally know where they stand.

“That’s— That’s what you are, though?” he asks, over her thoughts. Looking up at her from under his lashes, so earnest it might break her heart. _In love with me?_

She suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Fondly, of course.

"Of course, Fitz,” is all she says, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t be silly." Then, a little cheekier, "If I plan on using you only for your body, I'll be sure to let you know, first."

He snorts. "I'd appreciate that."

"Yeah?" she asks, moving back in a little closer, eyeing his mouth.

"Yeah," he breathes, as she takes his face in her hands, feels one of his own gather in the fabric at her lower back.

She's just barely brushed their lips together when the base-wide siren shrieks.

He pulls back with a with a groan, and suddenly the living room is crowded once again with people making their way back to their stations.

Jemma blinks, slowly. "What in the h—"

"We have a situation," Skye interrupts, jogging in. She's faintly sweaty, in loose clothes, hair still tied up from the pick-up games.

"Yeah, no duh," Fitz says, scrubbing a hand over his face in frustration.

She takes a closer look at them, huddled up on the couch, the lines of socially acceptable space between them even more blurred than usual.

"Oh," she says, realizing. "Sorry." She sounds like she actually means it.

"Not your fault," Jemma says, brightly. She pats Fitz on the knee. Lower, "Plenty of time for other things later."

He perks up slightly.

Skye just shakes her head. “Anyway, we're gonna need all hands on deck," she says, shifting her weight restlessly from foot to foot. "You two good?”

Jemma turns to meet his eyes, and he sends her the smallest of nods.

“Yeah,” she says, with a little smile, lingering longer on the word than is probably necessarily. “Yeah, we’re good.”

"Uh," Skye says. "Okay, good. Briefing room in five, then?"

They nod, and she ducks out again, in the direction of the sirens, as quickly as she'd come.

"Never a dull moment, I suppose," Fitz murmurs, sending Jemma a small smile.

Reluctantly, he stands, then extends a hand to pull her up. She doesn't drop it as they head for the doorway — just holds on a little tighter as they make their way into the hall.

Never a dull moment, indeed. She bumps his shoulder with hers, and he nudges her back.

But it's true, she thinks, as they make their way toward the clamor, toward the rising frenzy and all possible dangers. They've got each other. They’re good.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, commentary and constructive criticism are very much appreciated, if you can spare the time. ♥
> 
> Story and chapter titles from Taylor Swift’s “Clean.”


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